The United States, France and Britain have agreed to seek a "strong and robust" U.N. resolution that sets precise and binding deadlines on removal of chemical weapons in Syria. The announcement comes two days after the United States and Russia brokered a deal for Syria to surrender its full chemical weapons arsenal by mid-2014. We speak to The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel, who has covered Russia for years, and Boston...

President Obama is set to nominate former White House aide Samantha Power to replace Susan Rice as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. In 2008, she debated investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill about Kosovo, Iraq sanctions and interventionism.

While President Obama has forcefully called out Congress for not passing gun control, the United States has been one of the leading countries blocking a global treaty to regulate the $70 billion international arms trade, torpedoing it last summer and dragging its feet on it this week at the United Nations. While Iran, Syria and North Korea are generating headlines for officially blocking the treaty, less attention has been paid to the role of...

The United Nations Security Council is holding an emergency meeting today after North Korea conducted its third-ever nuclear test in defiance of U.N. orders. According to international monitors, the underground explosion was roughly twice as large as North Korea’s last nuclear test in 2009. North Korea had vowed to conduct rocket launches and a U.S.-aimed nuclear test after the U.N. Security Council resolution tightened sanctions in...

Ten years ago this week, a defining moment occurred in the Bush administration’s push to invade Iraq. On Feb. 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State General Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council. His message was clear: Iraq possessed extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein was systematically trying to deceive U.N. inspectors by hiding prohibited weapons. A decade later, we host a debate between...

As the debate over gun control intensifies in the United States, work continues on an international treaty to regulate the global arms trade. On Monday, the United Nations General Assembly voted to reopen negotiations on the treaty. The United States dropped its opposition after stonewalling talks in July, a move that prompted critics to accuse President Obama of caving to congressional Republicans and the National Rifle Association in an...

The United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted recognize the sovereign state of Palestine, upgrading its observer status from "entity" to "non-member state." The move is viewed as a victory for Palestinians, but a diplomatic setback for the United States and Israel, who were joined by only a handful of countries in opposing the decision. With more than 190 members in the General Assembly, there were 138 votes...

The U.N.-Arab League special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, has announced his resignation after failing to bring an end to more than a year of violence. Both sides of the conflict have faced new accusations of committing atrocities this week amidst escalating clashes. We discuss the situation in Syria and the likely impact of Annan’s resignation with Charles Glass, former ABC News chief Middle East correspondent and author of the soon to be...

United Nations and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan met today with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the midst of worsening violence. Syria’s 16-month conflict has so far claimed more than 15,000 lives. Annan said today’s last-ditch attempt to salvage a peace effort ended with an agreement on how end the violence, but he did not disclose details. Earlier, he acknowledged his six-point peace plan had failed to halt the fighting...

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